The Edge Of Spring, Mesa Verde

Cliff Canyon on a March morning.

The middle of March of a mild winter and I was searching for the very first signs of spring at 7,000 feet in Mesa Verde National Park.

A recent weak storm system had left the air clear and crisp in the morning sunlight. I began with a morning drive around the Mesa Top Loop road as well as the newly reopened for the season Cliff Palace Loop road.

Cliff Palace, the crown jewel of Mesa Verde National Park.

I stopped to make a panorama of Cliff Palace in soft morning shade. Then another for views of Cliff Canyon and the House Of Many Windows Ruin.

House Of Many Windows, Cliff Canyon. They are actually doorways, not windows.

Returning in late afternoon I made another panorama of Square Tower House, my favorite in the park.

Square Tower House site on a March afternoon.

And I once again tried to imagine how the ancient ones could build a four story tower by hand out of sandstone "bricks" and mud mortar. No iron tools yet, only stone tools. No beasts of burden. Only humans. Amazing.

Square Tower House site, featuring the tallest structure in the park.

Back on the Cliff Palace road, I bypassed the Balcony House parking lot, looking at the few tourists that had stopped to see it. Surprise: you can't. Not from there. Because it's in the alcove underneath you. The Ranger led tours down to it hadn't started for the season.

Hemenway House, from across the canyon.

But I did stop at the overlook for Hemenway House, which you're not allowed to tour at all. Same as with most of the park. Too many sites, too rugged.

It would take massive road construction to reach even a fraction more than you can now. Instead, you get to see the most impressive sites, and the rest are protected for research.

Balcony House from the Soda Canyon overlook.

But I wanted some more shots of Balcony House. So I hiked the easy Soda Canyon Overlook Trail to the viewpoint across the head of the canyon.

Balcony House, with a long lens.

On the hike back I photographed the only emerging greenery I could find: bunch grasses and Bitterbrush (Purshia tridentata).

New spring growth, bunch grass.

Emerging leaves of Bitterbrush, Purshia tridentata (meaning three lobed, you can see some already).

I was also interested in how the cacti had fared during the winter. Their somewhat leathery and waxy "skin" preserves moisture but by now they were looking quite wrinkled, waiting to revive themselves.

Wrinkled pads of Prickly Pear Cactus at the end of winter.

And the Banana Yucca (Yucca spp.), which weren't wrinkled but were looking a bit yellow compared to how they will soon look again with the revival of springtime.

End of winter coloration in Banana Yucca.

See more of my photography at my website: www.NaturalMoment.com.

Photo location: Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado.

© Copyright 2018 Stephen J. Krieg

Icing On The Day: Coyote

Coyote, roadside hunting, Mesa Verde National Park.

One of the many privileges of working in a National Park is that you can more frequently see wildlife in a more natural state. As in: not being shot at.

I thought about this as I was driving back out of Mesa Verde again during the winter "offseason" (for tourists, that is).

Coyote watching from above for its next meal.

A coyote was walking down the edge of the road, coming toward me. I stopped well before I got close to it, so I could grab my camera, and turn its control dial to a setting that I had programmed for "wildlife" so that I could enable it quickly. (I get a little smarter every year). (But just a little).

Being in a National Park, the coyote was only marginally interested in me, or should I say my vehicle. It surely was keeping an eye on me. At least one corner of it, just out of instinct.

I think that it was walking down the shoulder of the road because it gave a better view of the terrain just below. Looking for food. Prey.

Which made me think about weak we humans are, despite our immense intellectual talents. Because that coyote essentially wore its home on its back. Thick warm fur. It knows where to find (to it) delicious, high calorie food. It knows where to curl up in a sheltered place in the fiercest of winter storms. When to sleep, when to go back to hunting for the next meal.

Thus it needs no job. No career. It has one. It is one.

Could you live out there without a whole lot of insulated clothing and supplies that you had paid for somewhere? How "free" are you, after all?

See more of my photography at www.NaturalMoment.com.

© Copyright Stephen J. Krieg

Icing On The Day: Bobcat

Sunrise on Point Lookout, at the entrance to Mesa Verde.

A February day at Mesa Verde National Park began with it now being light enough around 7am as for the sun to soon be crawling over the eastern horizon, lighting up the towering rampart of Point Lookout as I drove into the entrance of the park. The vertical cliffs of sandstone at the summit glowed with gold, while the more angled and brush covered lower slope turned rosy. And all the other slopes still in shadow provided a wonderful contrast of angles and tones.

Up onto the Mesa itself, and 20 miles in as I neared park headquarters, I saw that I had plenty of time for a swing around the Mesa Top loop road. To see how things looked now that the sun was much further north than it had been back at Winter Solstice. A nature photographer has to keep up on such things, you know.

Square Tower House cliff dwelling site in the soft shadows at sunrise.

At Square Tower House I parked and walked down the paved path to the overlook. The sunshine was just creeping over part of the rim of the canyon, but the alcove below with the remnants (lovingly stabilized by the National Park Service) of the prehistoric village lay in soft daylight illumination.

In late afternoon as I was driving "outbound" as the rangers call it (there's only one road into the park, and out) a bobcat Lynx rufus) was walking down the opposite edge of the road. This being a National Park with no hunting, it was much more relaxed than if it had been surprised by a vehicle pulling up behind it outside the park. 

And though I had my camera equipment beside me, it was zipped up in the case, and it did not have the long lens on.

This still being the serene offseason in the park, I stopped right in the road, put my warning flashers on, and watched the bobcat to see if it was going to bolt out of sight into the brush, or not. It didn't. So I hurriedly pulled out the camera and changed lenses, while the beautiful little predator walked up onto the brushy bank a little.

I didn't think I had time to change the camera to a much higher ISO speed, so I shot away with what it was set on. What the heck.

Blurred but beautiful bobcat shot.

Still no other cars approaching behind me, so I kept shooting. The first one here I like even though the shutter speed was slow enough to make for a blurred image. But it is of the small cat in full length stepping down the slope. It almost looks like a tiger in this shot.

Bobcat, over the shoulder pose.

Then it turned back up the slope and almost seemed to pose briefly. From this angle the patterns in its fur shows how well it can blend in with the brush.

Bobcat, hoping I'll drive on and leave it alone.

Then it looked to the other side, right at me. Between its momentary stillness, my resting my hand on the car window, and my camera's state of the art image stabilization technology, we had a win.

And I continued "outbound", down the hill to Cortez and home.

Photo Location: Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado, USA.

See more of my photography, and order prints at my website: www.NaturalMoment.com.

© Copyright Stephen J. Krieg

Mesa Verde: Sunset Glow At Square Tower House

Square Tower House alcove just before sunset, Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado.

November has arrived. Up in Mesa Verde National Park at the park's south end, (7,000 feet elevation), I spent an evening seeing how the much lower angle of the autumn sun was working the sunset light on the cliff dwellings.

On the beginning of the Mesa Top Loop road, I soon was able to see how Navajo Canyon was lit up by the low angle of the late autumn sun. Square Tower House, I thought, was going to look really good.

And it did. But it was still a half hour or so until sunset. So I drove on to see how the light was playing on some of the other Ancestral Puebloan cliff dwelling remains along the drive.

Oak Tree House alcove, early November afternoon sunlight.

Cliff Palace, as the pre-sunset shadows come up the alcove wall well before sunset.

Nice, but I was really interested in seeing how Square Tower House would look at sunset.

I swung back around the loop and parked and returned to the overlook. I was the only one there. I kept glancing at the sun, so low above the mesa top to the south. The lower the angle of the sun, the warmer the light would be. Each few minutes mattered, the difference noticeable.

As the shadows came up the alcove wall, the warm sunlight glow intensified. It seems to do this better at Square Tower House than at Cliff Palace because the adjacent canyon (Navajo Canyon) is wider, allowing the sun to be even lower before it finally disappears below the far canyon rim.

Square Tower House in sunset glow.

Photo location: Mesa Verde National Park, southwest Colorado.

See more of my photography at www.NaturalMoment.com

© Copyright Stephen J. Krieg

First Fall Weather at Mesa Verde

Rain curtain from the Navajo Canyon overlook, Mesa Verde.

Mid September, and I'm enjoying the first fall weather of the season, which looks like it's going to continue. Goodbye summertime heat at last?

I drove the Mesa Top Loop road first, just after the first hard rain in weeks had moved on.

Oak Tree House cliff dwelling, after the rain.

The overall lighting was poor, so I concentrated on eliminating the sky in most of my shots. I was interested in how the wet Cliff Dwelling Sandstone layer was showing off its dark streaks of desert varnish even more prominently.

Fire House cliff dwelling.

At Sun Temple's "Camera Point" I got a nicely saturated panorama of Cliff Palace.

Cliff Palace from across the canyon at Camera Point.

Inside the Cliff Palace alcove, the Ranger-led tour's visitors were enjoying being nice and dry.

Tour group at Cliff Palace.

The Mesa Top Loop completed, it was time to continue outbound from the southwest end of the Park.

Young wild turkey drinking from the rumble strip gouges in the road.

On the way to Far View, where the park's lodge is located, I came across the same hen (female) and youngster wild turkey pair that I'd seen on the way in that morning.

Being in a National Park where no hunting is allowed, they were quite casual. I watched them drink from the "rumble strip" depressions in the road's centerline, as I had seen other birds do. A convenient way for a quick drink of cool, clear water after the storm.

Mother and youngster wild turkeys.

Since there was only one poult (hatchling) with the mother hen on both sightings, I assumed that the rest of the young ones had been killed, probably picked off one by one by predators. Which is why each hen hatches a clutch of eggs, not just one.

Storm to the south, from Park Point.

At Park Point I made a panorama of the slowly clearing skies and the rain storm still underway down toward Shiprock, New Mexico. Then I shifted my view to the north for a nice wet view toward the Knife Edge cliff formation, with the La Plata Mountains in the distance.

Looking north toward the Knife Edge, from Park Point.

While at Park Point I made some shots of early fall colors in some Gambel Oak leaves. With the chilly nights in the forecast things should be changing quickly.

A few Gambel Oak (Quercus gambellii) early fall colors.

Serviceberry (Amelanchier alnifolia) early fall colors.

As a closing touch, I photographed a lovely thunderhead cloud before continuing down from the North Rim and out of the park.

Thunderhead cloud from Park Point.

Photo location: Mesa Verde National Park, southwest Colorado.

© Copyright 2017 Stephen J. Krieg

Days So Much Shorter

Pinon Pine snag at Montezuma Valley Overlook.

It's August now. Late summer. It's been a spectacular one, too. Rain showers in the afternoon, keeping the land green. Minimizing the wildfire danger.

At this time of the year, the days (length of daylight) are getting shorter by about two minutes a day. Meaning an hour a month. As we slide out of the heat of summer into the glorious coolness of autumn, starting in September. It won't be long.
 
Photo location: Mesa Verde National Park, southwest Colorado.

See more of my photography at www.NaturalMoment.com. 

© Copyright 2017 Stephen J. Krieg

Mesa Verde Summertime View

Navajo Canyon, Mesa Verde.

It's mid summer. Here comes late summer right around the corner. I try to enjoy all the seasons.

People are saying: "It's almost August! Where is the summer going?" It's going day by day, of course.

Soon it will be fall, my favorite time of year. But not yet. Here on the Colorado Plateau, it's monsoon thunderstorm season, the beautiful time when southern moisture collides with hot high country temperatures and boils over in the skies. When all manner of blues and whites and grays make for a mesmerizing palette above.

Navajo Canyon cliffs.

Up on Mesa Verde, I continue to watch things progress through the summer. The vegetation growing until it's once again time to settle in for the coming cold season.

Once again I look down upon Cliff Palace, the largest cliff dwelling in North America.

Cliff Place at Mesa Verde.

Meanwhile, in the parking lot, the Rabbitbrush are beginning to bloom. A butterfly is sufficiently distracted as to allow me to take some photos of it from a few feet away.

Butterfly on Rabbitbrush blooms, Cliff Palace parking lot.

Photo location: Mesa Verde National Park, southwest Colorado.

© Copyright 2017 Stephen J. Krieg

Mesa Verde Wildflowers: Fendlerbush

Fendlerbush blossoms, Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado

The first day of June in Mesa Verde National Park. I stopped at the Far View pueblo sites for an early evening walk. Being on the mesa top, it's an easy walk, and it was a beautiful late afternoon.

Before long I came upon more Fendlerbush (Fendlera falcata (F. rupicola), which have been blooming for a while now. Still they are not done, at least not certain shrubs in the park. With the late afternoon light illuminating them from behind, they glowed even more. The deep shadows behind only served to make them stand out even more.

Their flower buds are pink, but as they open they turn a very pure white. The four petals make them an easy identify up here. 

Photo location: Mesa Verde National Park, southwest Colorado. See more of my photography at www.NaturalMoment.com.

© Copyright 2017 Stephen J. Krieg

Mesa Verde from Park Point

Looking south from Park Point, Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado.

Early May, and the spring season is well along. Not far from the Memorial Day weekend start to the real crush of visitors. A great time to explore the park before it gets hot and crowded.

I had been working at the Museum and was driving home. The past few days had been wet and cold. The warm weather residents that were visiting were miserable and complaining a bit. Hey, springtime in the Rockies....

But the cold front passed, and cumulus clouds were accenting the blue sky once again. As I drove north from the Museum on Chapin Mesa, I stopped at Park Point, highest knob of landscape within the park. It has 360 degree views all around.

 Photo location: Mesa Verde National Park, southwest Colorado.

© Copyright 2017 Stephen J. Krieg

Mesa Verde: North Rim April Evening

Mesa Verde's North Rim escarpment from the Geologic Overlook.

"Light forms the image" wrote legendary photographer Edward Weston (1886-1958). Meaning the quality of the light at the time. The type of light, and how it played off of the surfaces in the scene.

Our world is lit by our Sun. But it is our atmosphere that filters that sunlight in many ways. Clouds have much to do with it, by their absence or presence, and by what type of cloud it is.

View north across the Montezuma Valley, with the Knife Edge lit up.

On a recent April evening as I drove along the North Rim of Mesa Verde, I had the pleasure of watching the afternoon sunlight and clouds play across the scenery.

Hazy evening silhouettes from the North Rim of Mesa Verde, with Sleeping Ute Mountain in the distance.

It was hazy down in the Montezuma Valley, making the light separate ridges and peaks from near to far.

Dead tree like a statue at the Montezuma Valley Overlook, Mesa Verde.

Photo location: Mesa Verde National Park, southwest Colorado.

See more of my photography at www.NaturalMoment.com.

© Copyright 2017 Stephen J. Krieg

Mesa Verde: North Rim Morning

Point Lookout, from the northern end of Mesa Verde National Park.

Early April, and time to drive back up into Mesa Verde to go to work. The warm-season crowds have not yet arrived, just the Spring Break families that have livened up the place after the winter doldrums. The days continue to lengthen and some shrubs and grasses are sprouting a little bit of greenery.

From just inside the deserted (it's too early for a ranger to be on duty) entrance station I pull over into the parking lot that is designated for visitors towing trailers to drop them off before driving up the steep tight switchbacks. The parking lot is empty this early in the season. It's a good place to stop and photograph Point Lookout, the iconic northern tip of the Mesa Verde itself. There is a trail to the top of it, from Morefield Campground on the south side of it. The gentle side.

Mancos Valley Overlook, April 2. The La Plata Mountains in the distance.

After the first set of switchbacks you come to the Mancos Valley Overlook. Take it. Especially on a springtime morning like this, with the clouds clearing as the early sunlight lights them up.

Looking south onto the steep slopes of Mesa Verde, from the Mancos Valley Overlook.

Driving on a ways, I go through the tunnel and up some more switchbacks, pulling over at the Montezuma Valley Overlook, which allows one to gaze down the other side, down toward the town of Cortez.

Morning at the Montezuma Valley Overlook, with Sleeping Ute in the far distance.

There I make several photos, captivated by the sunlit lumps of the distant Sleeping Ute Mountain, still largely covered in snow.

Panorama from Montezuma Valley Overlook.

Then the road climbs toward Park Point, which is -- no surprise there -- the highest point in the park. On this cold April morning it also means rising into and out of fog. A veil dance.

Sunrise fog near Park Point, Mesa Verde.

After Far View, where the lodge has yet to open for the season, the highway descends back to 7,000 feet and the Park Headquarters and Museum. Time to park the vehicle and get ready for work. Time to greet more visitors and share what I've learned so far about this World Heritage Site in southwest Colorado.

Foggy turnout, Mesa Verde.

Into and out of the morning fog, Mesa Verde.

Photo location: Mesa Verde National Park, southwest Colorado.

See more of my photography at www.NaturalMoment.com.

© Copyright 2017 Stephen J. Krieg